A nice bedtime story for young children

My friend, Marina, in St. Petersburg, Russia wrote this story and created the wonderful illustrations as well -- I am quite proud of her achievement:

http://thebluestar.c-moll.spb.ru/en/

Life at Valley High....

School had always represented an interference in what my pals and I really wanted to do which essentially amounted to this: riding our bicycles, driving cars, chasing girls along back roads, beer drinking, coon hunting, fishing, squirrel hunting, and listening to wild stories of old winos at the local bootlegger’s joint.

For my part, I additionally particularly enjoyed reading but not the material which was offered at school by the teachers. The only person who ever understood this was Mrs. Madge Ervin. Most students didn't care for Mrs. Ervin because she was to the point and abrupt, but I liked her a great deal. She had been my third-grade teacher and eventually she became the school librarian. I thought she was perfect in that role, very organized and a good listener. She knew I leaned toward adventure fiction and so, through her great knowledge and willful assistance, I got to savor some really outstanding titles.

By the time I reached high school, I had become a genuine terror. I was forced to convey a pretense of civilized behavior at specific times because my own father was a very strict school principal in Portsmouth and there were additionally many teachers within my extended family. They often shared information about the activities of my many cousins and me. So I spent a good amount of time plotting and scheming as to how to semi-legitimately escape from class. I was lucky to have a confederate of a sort in this juvenile conspiracy -- it was our school principal at Valley High, Mr. James Young. Mr. Young was sympathetic with at least a few of my passions. Rather than come down on me like a boulder, (which he could have done since he and my dad were old college pals), he simply diverted and channeled my agenda as best he could. He had gotten no small amount of practice while dealing with my older brother of seven years, Mike.

One passion which Mr. Young and I wholly shared was squirrel hunting. On more than one occasion, Mr. Young would step into the first period study hall on a nice September day and motion for Roy Marshall and me to come along. Oh, Joy!!! That meant we were going squirrel hunting because Mr. Young wasn't above playing hooky himself now and then. Frankly, it was to Mr. Young's great advantage to do this because Roy and I were frequently scouting new ground all around the county and we had secured landowner permission to hunt these virgin territories. Most of these properties were bulging with either gray or fox squirrels or both.

People would hardly believe it nowadays but we always carried our shotguns, (and often hand guns for coon hunting), right in the back seat of our cars in the school parking lot. This was a common practice for those of us who hunted and it saved us from returning home to retrieve our weapons.  And so we could thus get into the woods as quickly as possible after school had let out. So Roy and I would jump into Jim's car, (Mr. Young became "Jim" on these squirrel-hunting expeditions, a privilege we never abused), fire up a smoke, and he would pull around to our cars in the student parking area. Once there, we'd surreptitiously slip our shotguns and hunting gear from our vehicles into his. We'd usually make it back to school just as the busses were lining up to close out the day. Those were splendid times indeed. There’s something about playing hooky which infuses a kid with a rush and when you're hooking along with the school principal, it's even lovelier.

But I had to devise other additional means of escape from the doldrums of grueling classes such as French II, Geometry, and Government (Civics.) I somehow managed to join certain organizations which came with the perquisites of occasionally being excused from class. One year I was the photographer for the Annual Staff and I shot tons of film which was never published anywhere. I think for two years I managed to latch on to the job of construction crew member for the class plays. We built little and smoked a great deal. And our football field and track were pretty new back then and a new concrete block concession stand was being built as well. Coach Morris Gullion was always quite happy to find volunteers willing to sod his beloved football field, a thankless task at which I excelled. We were typically left to our own devices so we just posted a guard at the top of the hill, commenced our work and smoked all we wanted to.

But our Senior year was the time when things actually got out of control. Hell, it even began to worry me! Here's what happened: Claude Sammons had been the Mechanical Drawing and Wood Shop teacher for many years. He ran a very tight ship and everything was maintained in perfect order. He taught even the most heinous and rowdy boys a great deal to get them through day-to-day life. For me, the shop class was elective as I was enrolled in the College Preparatory Program. I carried a heavy load of classes from my freshman year forward so that by the time I became a Senior, my days would be my own. I had actually devised this plan from the start of high school, probably on the sage counsel of my brother, Mike, who was infinitely superior at scheming than I was myself. So by my Senior year, the only class to which I was obligated was in the first period, Mrs. Fannin's Government class, the dreaded hour of all Seniors. The remainder of my days’ time was spent in the wood shop.

Mr. Sammons had opted to work in the higher-paying position of the school Guidance Counselor, a job for which I felt he was ill-suited since, from my view, his outstanding talents were clearly going to be wasted. The guidance counselor of past years had done nothing that I ever heard of. I had never met with her (Mrs. Bertha Phillips) a single time and it's not for the fringe student to reach up to the Administration for guidance -- the guidance counselor must be aggressive in contacting all the students to set them on a positive track in life, or at least try to do so. It's ironic that her husband, Mr. Phillips the janitor, gave me invaluable advice while I was cutting class to help him, (yet another of my numerous dodges), on what I might do following graduation. Mr. Phillips was a great old fellow.

The grim story for Mr. Young was that he was short of a stellar shop teacher, a position which is incredibly difficult to fill. First we inherited poor old Julius Chandler, an elderly minister who was a superb home craftsman and who had never taught school in his lifetime. He really liked the boys but had not the least notion as to how to control them. Certain boys, (I won’t name them outright), T.M., G.B., R.B., R.A., and T.G., aggregately became the bane of his formerly peaceful existence. And while I did nothing to impede the old man, neither did I demonstrate the slightest trace of leadership in an attempt to aid him, I am ashamed to confess. Before many days had passed, the lunatics were running the asylum and Mr. Chandler had become a ball of nerves. In fact, he is now buried just a mile or so east of my present home at the summit of the McDermott Cemetery Hill and I often wonder if we might have shaved ten years or so off his otherwise fruitful life.

Mr. Young came into the shop one Monday morning with a rumpled looking character attending him by the name of Mr. Larry Flannery. Mr. Flannery, he said, would be replacing Mr. Chandler and we were to help him all we possibly could. Of course we would. Then Mr. Young pulled me off to the side and cut me the deal of a lifetime. The truth was, Larry Flannery had a B.A. in Social Science, (good for nothing whatever, I have one myself), and he didn't know a band saw from a jackhammer. And he certainly possessed no knowledge of mechanical drawing which was to be taught to Freshmen and Sophomores. Would I teach the boys the mechanical drawing? You bet your sweet fucking ass I would! What a coup! This deal included a frequent excused absence from Mrs. Fannin’s Government class -- I would just read the material and take the tests, a move which in fact moved me from a C- up to a B. My dad was much pleased.

Larry, as we came to know him, was posited strictly as a disciplinarian. What an outrageous notion -- he was more evil than all of us boys put together! In his private life, Larry was a bachelor-gambler of dubious repute. Years later, my brother Mike, (who became the Chief Probation Officer for the local Common Pleas Court), carried Larry on felony probation on the crime of carrying a concealed weapon, this charge no doubt stemming from some incident from within a Portsmouth speakeasy, most likely The Subway. So Larry taught the boys how to gamble, or rather he taught us how to cheat. He collected our lunch money most days with the nefarious match game, a numbers device which one cannot possibly lose when one knows the mathematical hoax involved in playing the game. We were too stupid to catch on because Larry was shrewd enough to lose a game now and again on purpose.

I kept my covenant with Mr. Young -- I taught the boys to draw, although clearly not as effectively as Mr. Sammons might have done. When a couple of the troublemakers would attempt to challenge me I would just retrieve one or two Senior thugs from the shop and the matter would be immediately and permanently quashed with no aftermath. It wasn't a perfect method for running a class but it got us through the year. I doubt, though, that my methods would have merited the School Board’s endorsement.

Still, for Mr. Young, no news from the shop was good news. To keep the younger boys' mouths shut, we allowed them to periodically take a break and come into the shop for a smoke back by the welder, or to play the match game with Larry any time they wished. And one Freshman or Sophomore was appointed daily to stand guard duty at the door to maintain a watch for Mr. Young because we had smoking going on by the constantly fired-up welder and two or three card games were always in progress at various places throughout the large room. I would quickly complete the drawings for the appointed watchmen because Mr. Young would periodically scan these drawings and check off the names against the list of students. When it comes to drafting, I am truly a master, a skill which I ultimately carried forward to college engineering classes.

One day, I don't know why, G.B. said we were going to load up everything and take it all home. Larry was late for work that morning and so G. backed his big Oldsmobile into the shop and, with some help, loaded the table saw into his trunk. Obviously, the trunk lid wouldn't shut but G. didn't give a shit and navigated his car, trunk lid high in the air and saw protruding, back to the parking lot. Well this singular act breached the flood gates. Everybody drove their cars around and started loading up -- by the time they were finished, there wasn't a hammer or screwdriver remaining anywhere. Larry finally arrived, saw what had happened, and practically went into convulsions. He was a very high-strung person. When no one would immediately confess to the obvious larceny he headed down the hall in a huff to retrieve Mr. Young.

I thank the late James Young to this day and with all my heart for not pulling me aside to get the low down. He took on the task of remedying the matter through his own initiative. I forget what the threat was if we didn't comply but he said that he and Larry were leaving for fifteen minutes and when he got back, everything right down to the last 8d box nail better be back where it belonged. As soon as they walked out a scramble ensued. Everything was put right in five minutes and we utilized the next ten to grab a smoke or two before the authorities returned. Fortunately, all this happened within a few weeks of graduation and Mr. Young desired no problems which would cause eight or ten Seniors to not graduate. No one I ever knew had a cooler head than Mr. Young -- he knew precisely how to handle boys in difficult situations.

Once in a while, Roger McClay, who was the chemistry and physics teacher, would hear too much cacophony in the shop and he would peer out his door glass across the hall at our door to see what was up. At such times, either T.M. or G.B. would usually be summoned and they would simply point ominously at Mr. McClay, an act which caused him to become instantaneously blind, deaf, and mute. T. and G. were outlandishly large and domineering fellows and they could each convey an air of noir-authority, much in the spirit of a swarthy Mafioso guy. A number of the Senior boys that year had really been wearing on Mr. McClay, a fact which was not lost on the under-classmen. I think it was the following year when I heard that D.T. had physically roughed him up a bit. Such an act would have been unheard of at Valley in previous years but I guess my Class of '71 gave rise to something rather notorious which sort of clung on for a time, not a positive legacy for me or my peers.

The advent of Driver Education came about when I was a senior and Mr. Douglas Booth became the instructor. This was likely a thoughtful choice since he could handle the rougher boys with no problem and, the fact was, most of us had been driving since we were thirteen anyway. I think T.G. commenced driving when he was seven or eight because his dad ran a big junkyard down by the Drive-in Theater and T. loved to race the drivable cars around in the junkyard lot.

One day we were out driving around, a dubious contingent including G.B., R.B., T.C., and me, with Mr. Booth riding shotgun and reading his daily newspaper. T. was our pilot out near Minford and we soon spotted an elderly lady crossing the road ahead to retreive her mail from the box. I think it was R. who blurted out, "Run over that old bitch!" Well that was a very unfortunate remark because when Mr. Booth dropped his paper a bit to grab a looksee, let us say that it turned out to be a person near and dear to his heart. I don't recall precisely how it all played out but you can bet that it wasn't good in the end for R.

But the Driver Education car was yet another device which enabled me to occasionally skip class. A couple of us would go to Mr. Booth and volunteer to wash the car down at Shumway's gas station in Lucasville. He'd toss us the keys and we'd usually head straight for Hardrock's place, (the local bootlegger, Charlie Lockhart), for a quick cold beer. Then we'd run around the Lucasville Bottoms for a while and eventually we'd race back to Shumway's, wash the big Ford in record time, and then return the keys just before school was dismissed for the day.

During my Senior year, most mornings commenced with a get-together at Hardrock's place in the Lucasville Bottoms. Hardrock lived in a tiny green tarpaper shack and his operation was pretty simple. He went to town and bought lots of beer, wine, and whiskey and when he re-sold it at his house, which of course was in a dry township, he charged double what he paid for it. So a beer was about seventy-five cents. We didn't have the money to drink many of those before class each day so we often opted for Old Pheasant Brand Muscatel Wine instead -- wino wine. It was $1.25 per pint and two of us could get a pretty good buzz rolling with that amount. It certainly made the days pass more pleasantly. Old Hardrock was a prince of a guy. He inevitably had a good story to impart and, as he supped his breakfast tomato soup each morning, he'd fill us in on all the Bottoms gossip from the previous evening which might include cockfighting winners, shootings and other assaults, hired insurance arsons, card game winners and losers, and so on. Hardrock was better by far than the radio because he always embellished a bit to make each story more interesting but he'd never tell a lie outright.

We rode to school pretty much every morning with Gary Lee Risner in a decrepit sixty-something Pontiac Tempest. We'd start out in Crowe Hollow, Gary driving with his now late brother Larry Eugene riding shotgun and me occupying the rear seat. Then we'd swing in on West Avenue in Lucasville behind the Elementary School and pick up the now late Darryl Neeley, a cousin to the Risners. From there it was on to Hardrock's unless we had to stop to re-supply our blessed cigarettes. Darryl was the very best of us and I will not now go into how he was accidentally killed just a short period following our graduation -- it's a long and tragic story. But he eternally had a smile for everyone and was much loved by all his classmates, boys and girls alike. I miss him a great deal and I think about him all the time. Anyway, about eight minutes before the final bell rang to commence classes we would race up the hill to school in that old Tempest, sharing a good snort of Muscatel as we did so.

Once in awhile, Gary's car would become crippled and we’d be forced to ride the bus up the hill, (now Robert Lucas Road), from the Intermediate School on U.S. Route 23. We always chose Mr. Keller's bus for two noteworthy reasons: it was the final bus to ascend the hill to the High School and, Mr. Keller always allowed us to smoke all we wanted. He smoked too. The only people on this bus were the smokers because most students wanted to arrive at school a bit earlier to complete any last-minute homework. Homework be damned! That was the Crowe Hollow credo. I'd scratch out something in the final few seconds, garnering answers from the weak-willed whenever possible, and flail it toward the teacher at the last possible moment. Along Robert Lucas Road, there exists to this very day a small newt-and-toad pond on the right after you have topped the hill. We'd pull all the windows down to clear the smoke on Mr. Keller's bus and he'd shout, just before reaching the pond, "Throw those fuckin' cigarettes out!" He wasn't bull-shitting either and so we did. I'll bet the nicotine level of that pond would have killed any living thing back in those days.

As for girls, the Valley girls weren't much interested in most of us for obvious reasons. A couple of younger ones did take us on and we loved them very much for their kind attentions. I latched on to R.M. from the Bottoms, a free-spirit who sported a joyous, beautiful smile and who was four years my junior, but she knew far more about life than I ever did. We went to the Scioto Breeze Drive-in on Friday and Saturday nights, usually avoiding the entrance fee via the very large trunk of Pat Henry's '58 Chevy convertible. We also ran the back roads as a pack over in the northwest corner of the county where most of my numerous cousins lived and attended high school. I loved R. very much and, to this day, I feel a special fondness toward her even though I haven't seen her for forty-odd years. She eventually ran off with S.C., one of my Elvis-ish hero-icons from the Lucasville Bottoms and a man ten years my senior. I was quite proud that R. chose to run off with S. -- this lessened the pain of a love suddenly lost.

Lots of girls from other schools vied for our attentions. Darryl was our secret weapon -- they all wanted Darryl. But we seemed to always have enough girls on board to match up out on Freejack Hill for lengthy necking and beer-drinking sessions. Nothing beyond that ever happened -- there were simply too many of us. The car was as a can of sardines. We'd stay out pretty late and on weekends the girls were forgotten and we'd go coon hunting with Brother Bill Scaff of Otway. One night we caught and killed a skunk and, before dying, it revenged itself by spraying all of us, dogs included. The next day at school we were catching a lot of evil stares from our classmates. Mr. Young came to the rescue and sent us home for a day or so.

Once a year, Mr. Young felt an official obligation to catch all the smokers in the act. This was more an Annual Event than it was something to be feared or dreaded. We all knew it was coming and only fate would save certain individuals from the odious penalties of smoking at school. There was a janitor's room behind the stalls in the boy's restroom. Mr. Young would spend most of a day in that room, peering through a small vent above the stalls. We smoked in the restroom quite a lot between classes just to grab a couple of puffs. This routine practice led to doom in my Sophomore year. Near the end of the day, Mr. Young called off a laundry list of names over the speaker system, all smokers, and instructed us to report to his office. On the day I got caught, he also called Bill "Dinky" Dalton's name which was a big surprise since Dinky didn't smoke and we all knew that. We arrived in the office en masse, each of us bearing the feeble hope that this wasn't about smoking [Ha!]. As it turned out, Dinky had made some depraved and disparaging remark about Mr. Young personally and Mr. Young just wanted to scare the living shit out of him, which he proceeded to do -- then he let him go, addressing the rest of us with that ever-so-grim countenance which he could command at will. It was a choice between three licks and forty laps around the gym, or, a three-day suspension. I was elated since I was running between twelve and fifteen miles per day in practice for the track team -- I was the two-miler. Everybody took the three licks and forty laps except for Jerry O'Banion, a counter-culture upper-classman. There were about twenty-five of us and we got that mess behind us the very next day, except for Jerry that is.

Oh, I could go on and on as to the foolish and rotten things which transpired over those years. I guess that school did provide enough structure that we arose from our beds at a decent hour, (not so during the summers!), and enough discipline was enforced upon us to prevent our becoming serial killers or ax murderers. I eventually struck out a career in law enforcement and that where I remained following college. The best poachers make the most effective wardens.

And by the way, here's how to win at the infamous match game:

http://rikravado.hubpages.com/hub/Matchsticks-Maths-Fun-is-Child-Play

TaB Nostalgia

TaB™ is a diet cola which is a product of The Coca-Cola Company. It hit the market in 1963, an era when one was laughed at outright for drinking a diet soda and in the same spirit in which consumers of Sanka™ were whispered about at elitist cocktail parties.

People little understood what Sanka was all about so the people who drank it often became the focus of empty-headed gossipy discussion.

So, one could accurately avow that TaB was far ahead of its time. It was actually created in response to Royal Crown [RC] Cola’s Diet Rite Cola™ which was pretty dreadful.

Tab eventually came in various flavors -- the cans were very arty-looking.

To my best recollection, TaB was initially marketed in peculiar-looking 12-ounce bottles. I say peculiar because they seemed to resemble no other soda bottle, very avant-garde in configuration, something akin to an Andy Warhol notion. Whomever was navigating TaB through the highly-competitive soft drink market was clearly in total control, from its unique flavor to how the bottle felt in one’s hand.

Tab bottles were both avant-garde in appearance and ergonomically shrewd. They felt good in the hand.

I’m loathe to point out that TaB became the soft drink equivalent of one of its failed contemporaries, the Edsel, the elegant Ford which lasted for only three years, (1958-60.) Like TaB, the Edsel was out on the fringe and clearly not pleasing to mainstream buyers; however, it appealed significantly to folks who had an eye for detail.

The 1958 Edsel represented a radical change in automotive design. The available options, such as seat belts, were equally radical.

It could be said that the Edsel was a lovely car, accepting that beauty is often in the eye of the beholder. But there can be no legitimate argument against the Edsel’s exposition of classiness. It reeked of innovation, comfort, power, and intricate lines. But like TaB, it came along ten years too soon.

The 1960 Edsel had morphed quite a bit from its introductory model two years earlier but it still departed too far from the center to catch on with most automotive consumers.

I remember, back in the day, the broad discussion of cancer-causing agents in food products, especially concerning artificial sweeteners, gaining a foothold. There was little legitimacy to this highbrow gossip but this singular concern rang the death-knell for TaB, at least in my region. The sweetener they were using at the time was saccharin.

Once in a great while a unique flavor comes to the market forefront which is worth keeping while hundreds of others thankfully fall by the wayside. TaB was one of the great flavors, albeit it was patently an adult one. Some of the cast-offs in the soda line were beverages like Ski™, a pop with an essence so ghastly that its marketers were forced to conduct a lottery of sorts in order to peddle it. When you bought a bottle of Ski you immediately pried out the cork seal from the cap to determine if you had won any cash. Drinking the beverage was little more than a noxious afterthought and a disappointment in general. But the odds for winning seemed pretty favorable to me. On multiple occasions I won two dollars and I recall hitting a five dollar jackpot at least once, a great deal of cash for a 10 year-old in the early 1960s.

Ski was horrible... except for the rewards which were found under the cap cork.

Ski was a lemon-lime soda marketed in a slim green bottle which conveyed the idea of dishwater with stuff floating around in it. Were these tiny bits of lemon and lime? It was impossible to say by observing or by tasting the brew but the formulator of this bile-ish recipe should have been forced to face a firing squad. On the other hand, who can say that Ski didn’t serve some constructive purpose by giving rise to soda creations such as Mountain Dew™, a Pepsi product which caught on slowly but which is now huge? Mountain Dew is a carbonated lemon-lime beverage which is heavily infused with sugar and caffeine, its chief selling points to abusers of methamphetamine and opioid pills. If you go to Appalachia and observe someone who is never seen without a can or bottle of Mountain Dew in their hand then there’s a good probability that they are an Oxycontin™ abuser or, more likely, a meth addict. If they have really bad skin and rotting teeth, (or no teeth at all), the probability jumps to about ninety-nine percent. Mountain Dew per se doesn’t actually cause the bad health – it’s just visually symptomatic of these particular illegal drug practices, noting of course that this is a sociological observation rather than a medical one. Most people who abuse these drugs, for reasons unknown to me, simply cease brushing their teeth and the sugar in Mountain Dew contributes somewhat to the subsequent dental problems of such folks. Meth people will tell you that they crave Mountain Dew.

In addition to their contemporary cans, Mountain Dew is currently being marketed in nostalgic packaging which targets Baby Boomers.

Getting back to TaB, it tastes like no other beverage, diet soda or otherwise. I cannot begin to describe it. TaB parallels not at all the flavor of either Diet Coke™ or Coke Zero™, its companion products. To me, the bold and intricate taste of TaB conveys a dry ambiance, much like that of brut champagne. However, few sodas are as refreshing to the palate on a hot summer day as an ice cold TaB. It is currently available in a hot pink aluminum can, (they had pull-off tabs in the old days which are now prohibited), a color which was assuredly in advance of its time but which one can nowadays commonly encounter on everything from sports cars to fishing lures.

The current face of TaB which has lost its little curley-cue "a".

I despised TaB upon its initial availability on the market. It wasn’t at all a kid’s drink. My peers and I inevitably opted for lots of sugar and more elemental flavors: Double Cola™, Gem [yellow] Cream Soda™, RC [Royal Crown] Cola™, and so on. And the advent of the larger 16-ounce bottled sodas also appealed to the young who, at least around here, had very little money to spend. But TaB still sold to people like my mother who loved it from the start.

Coca-Cola was popular with girls of my generation but in a particular way: They would take an ice-cold 7-ounce Coke [nowadays, these small retro-bottles are 8-ounce] and pour in a five-cent bag of Tom’s Salted Peanuts™. This would cause the pop to foam a bit, a chemical reaction to the salt. Using a thin paper straw, they would then sip it down until there was only an ounce or so remaining and then they’d drink the remainder and crunch the peanuts at the same time. I did wish to emphasize that boys never drank Cokes in this manner and, should one have tried it where his pals could see him, he would have been subjected to endless abusive jeering. But if you’ve never tasted a Coke this way then a great void of gastronomic pleasure indeed manifests your life. There also an old carnival worker’s secret which doubles the joy of having a Coke on a hot day and which I will reveal at the conclusion of this article.

About one year ago I discovered that TaB was being re-marketed in my region. Who would have dreamed it? Clearly it would not have been thought up by that marketing maniac, Roberto Goizueta, who decided in 1985 to change the recipe of Coca-Cola! Ironically, when Coke ultimately folded to public pressure and brought back the original recipe, some infinitely more sensible person re-introduced it under the shrewd sobriquet of Coke Classic. The company then re-gained market share on Pepsi-Cola™, which was their original objective. To my taste buds, New Coke™ tasted like flat, weak Pepsi – it was quite unappealing.

New Coke -- doomed from its inception.

Coca-Cola has a fascinating history and one can read all about it at various sites online – I won’t attempt to tackle it here and I’m not expert on the topic anyway. But I do wish to point out its more renowned attributes. Coke has an “edge” that Pepsi and all the other colas lack. No competing cola can possibly satisfy a Coke drinker. And no bartender in his right mind would ever consider brewing a highball or a cocktail with a cola other than Coke, ergo: Rum and Coke, a huge favorite of mine during my joyous drinking days. As for the Coke mythology, Coke will not dissolve a steel nail overnight, (I’ve tried it), but it will play Holy Hell on a car’s shiny paint-job.

I re-tried TaB  a year or so ago and I’m compelled to state that it has become one of the daily pleasures of my life. TaB is an acquired taste, in the same sense as is Scotch whiskey or, more commonly, black coffee. I still enjoy regular Coke and Caffeine-free Diet Coke™ as well but, given the choice among the three, I’ll pick TaB. Sadly, it’s not available everywhere – I find myself forced to purchase mine locally at Kroger’s because the smaller grocery stores simply do not have the space for all the available sodas. These more diminutive locations cling to the ABC method of inventory [Keep all the A's, big sellers -- dump all the C's, marginal sales items] taught at today’s university schools of marketing and which isn’t always a shrewd idea when it comes to consumer psychology: if you don’t offer a product, then there’s a one-hundred percent chance that the customer won’t purchase it. (That's how I see it anyway.) I also found that TaB was unavailable at my local Wal-Mart and there’s no viable excuse whatever for this gross oversight.

I own no stock in Coca-Cola. I don’t even know anyone who currently works for Coke. But if you want to try something new, (actually, something pretty old… but new to you), then grab yourself a 12-pack of TaB, put it on ice in a cooler, and improve your quality of life, (at least from a psychological standpoint.)

Now, I promised you a trick to enhance your Coca-Cola experience: go out and buy twelve 8-ounce glass bottles of Coke. Set the bottles upright in a cooler and place cracked ice around them to just below the necks. Then carefully pour some rock salt, (ice cream salt), over the ice and around the bottles. Too much and you’ll freeze the Coke – too little and you won’t achieve your objective of getting it super-cold. You’ll have to experiment with this but I can assure you that it’s worth the effort. If you accidentally get the salt up on the necks it will inevitably find its way into the soda and spoil it. As I retrieve one from the cooler I give it a quick dip in ice water which I keep in a second cooler to remove all salt residue. Due to its sugar content, Coke will drop notably below 32-degrees F. before it freezes, thus this technique will not work with any form of Diet Coke. In any case, if you implement this detailed process at your next backyard barbeque, (at least for the non-beer swillers), your guests will be astonished as to how great this Coke tastes and they’ll be suitably impressed with your hosting competence.

And if you have any little bags of Tom’s Salted Peanuts lying around, don’t be afraid to put them to good use. It must be a different salt because it tastes terrific in the Coke.

How to catch a Leprechaun

If you can capture a Leprechaun you can make him give you his gold, or you can make him grant three wishes, just like a Djinn or Genii. I have come close to laying my hands on that gold one time but the little bastard wrenched away from me when I wasn't paying attention and he got away, gold and all.

The best way to snag a Leprechaun is to wait for St. Patrick's Day or thereabouts, a time when they are most active. Also, you have to find a rainy spot in the local geography so that you can spot out a rainbow. The pot of gold is, of course, near the end of the rainbow but this will only get you within a hundred yards or so of the treasure. You'll need the owner to aid you in finding exactly where it is buried. There are definitely plenty of Leprechauns in the United States -- they came over with the Irish immigrants during the mid-1800s as a result of the Irish Potato Famine. Leprechauns have to eat too!

I prefer to don my woodland camos when I go Leprechaun hunting. I even use camo face paint because the little bastards have sharp eyesight and they move like lightning when they encounter humans. Leprechauns are not human, in case you didn't know this.

Leprechauns are very hard to spot!

Anyway, (and I have since started doing this), take along one of those shark spear guns like they used to use on the old television series Sea Hunt, (starring Lloyd Bridges as adventurer Mike Nelson), back in the early 60s. Move like a Scottish ghillie, very slowly, and stop periodically to surveil the area. When a Leprechaun shows himself, spear the little bastard right away, in the leg if possible -- you don't want to kill him as you need him alive. If he continues to raise a fuss after you've nabbed him, just taser him a good one and that will put an end to all that nonsense.

All Leprechauns know the rules, that they have to give up their gold, three wishes, or both in order to regain their freedom. Don't allow him to cheat you on this as you will be holding all the cards. And don't turn your back on the little greeen sum'bitch after you have secured the goods. They are evil, nasty little characters and they'll stab you right in the back to regain that fortune in gold.

So there you have it. Good hunting!

Patrick's Gourmet Italian Sausage and Chicken Cacciatore

This is an instance of creating an amazing gourmet-type dish, (which I love), from delicious so-called “peasant food”, (which I also love.) It's nothing whatever akin to the chicken cacciatore recipe which I usually prepare, (which you can find on Food.com posted under my screen name there of Bone Man.) -- that original recipe came from Art Ginsberg, a.k.a. Mr. Food whom most folks have seen on television. His version, (and my variation of it), always raises eyebrows and so does this one... but in different ways. The recipe below is much brighter and robust. It’s somewhat more complex but, given time, anyone with even marginal cooking experience can prepare it in about 2-3 hours, depending upon how fast you work. I like to stretch it out so that I enjoy making the recipe as much as I do eating the finished product. I've provided some latitude on the ingredient quantities so that you can personalize the dish to suit your own tastes – and feel free to substitute or add any preferred vegetables. So here you go:

The finished casserole.

INGREDIENTS:

-- 8-10 sweet or hot Italian sausages.

-- 24 ounces regular beer, (not "lite" beer – Miller Highlife™ or Budweiser™ works just fine.)

-- 2-3 chicken breast halves, (boneless, trimmed, raw (If you wish, you can marinate these in Italian dressing for 2-3 hours prior to browning.)

-- 4-6 fresh medium tomatoes, cut into chunks.

-- 2 small zucchinis, 2/3 of the skin peeled off with a potato peeler so that they looked "striped", and cut into 1" chunks, (small yellow squash is a perfect substitution.)

-- 1-2 cups cabbage, OR, 1 large head broccoli, roughly chopped.

-- 2 large onions, roughly chopped.

-- 8-12 ounces fresh mushrooms, wiped clean, stems trimmed, and halved.

-- 2-3 large cloves fresh garlic, minced.

-- OPTIONAL: 1 small jar sliced pimientos, drained.

-- 1/2 packet onion soup mix, (normally a packet makes 4 cups.)

-- 2 cups tap water

-- 3 Serrano (or jalapeño) peppers, topped, halved, and de-seeded.

-- 1/2 cup fresh cilantro, OR, parsley, roughly chopped.

-- 1 1/2 teaspoons granular chicken bouillon, (or 1 1/2 cubes, mashed.)

-- 1 teaspoon Liquid Smoke™, (I use hickory flavor -- be precise in your measurement as a little of this goes a long way.)

-- 3 Tablespoons vermouth.

-- 3 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided.

-- 1 1/2 teaspoons dried basil.

-- 1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt.


METHOD:

-- Preheat oven to 325-degrees F.

-- Blend and heat the two cups of water, chicken bouillon, onion soup mix, and the mushrooms for 10 minutes. (Bring to a boil and then simmer, uncovered -- set aside when done.)

-- Add the zucchini, tomatoes, and garlic together in a bowl and set aside. If you're using the optional pimientos, you can add them as well.

-- Boil (medium heat) the sausages in the beer for 20 minutes -- set aside.

-- In a large skillet over medium-high heat, add two tablespoons of the olive oil and sauté the onions, cabbage or broccoli (whichever you're using), peppers, and the cilantro or parsley – stir occasionally. Season with Liquid Smoke™, vermouth, dried basil, and seasoning salt. As soon as some caramelizing takes place on the onions, remove from the heat, place into a bowl, and set aside.

-- Without cleaning the skillet, add the final spoon of olive oil and, over medium-high heat, brown the chicken breast halves just a little.

-- Assemble the casserole: Spray a large casserole dish with cooking spray, (PAM™.) Lay in the sautéed onion blend. Lay in the sausages and chicken breasts. Pour the uncooked vegetables (tomatoes, zucchini, etc.) over the meat. Pour the onion soup blend with the mushrooms over the other ingredients. Cover with aluminum foil.

-- Bake the dish for one hour on the center rack.


NOTE: This dish can be served with either spiral, penne, or butterfly (farfalle) pasta if desired, or, you can also make sandwiches using Kaiser rolls.

Who Am I Going to Vote for?

I was down to voting for the Communist Party guy in the 2012 Presidential Election... until I discovered that they weren't bothering to put forward a candidate this time around as they are simply endorsing Barack Obama!

I had to ponder all whom I might be permitted to vote for and that's what obliged me to ultimately consider the Communists:

Do I want to vote for a slick-dressed multi-millionaire who hasn't a clue about what it's like to try to come up with enough cash to fill up my propane tank so my family won't freeze to death? (Thank God it's been a mild winter this time around!) Nope. Plus he tossed his dog on top of his car and the poor creature rode along in terror for the Romney family vacation all the way to Canada, shitting himself, (the dog, that is), at one point, (which old Mitt didn't know or care about until the shit started streaming down the side windows.) So that grotesque, heartless bastard Romney is definitely out.

How about the current White House occupant? Since gasoline is swiftly rolling up on four dollars per gallon, Obama can kiss my royal fucking ass if he thinks he's getting my vote. (Plus, thanks to his buck-toothed, corrupt, witless Secretary of State, a new Cold War with the Russians is now a distinct possibility.)

A weasely-acting televangelist clone from Pennsylvania, (a renowned Nazi state -- I avoid it like the plague), who clearly wants to inject multiple Fundamentalist Christian religious doctrines into our beloved U.S. Constitution, (an issue over which we essentially fought two wars with England to escape, and a matter which our founding father statesmen wisely separated from government intrusions and concerns from the outset), doesn't hold the slightest appeal for me.

How about the Georgian Uncle Fester of the Republican Party? He's a great pal of Hillary Clinton and he never awards less than a 5-star rating for any book he reviews on Amazon.com, a little factoid which serves to further illustrate that he's a jellyfish and a dumbass. And The Newtster also directed the Latinos in Miami in one of his more legendary speeches that they needed to, "...stop speaking the language of the ghetto..." [that would be Spanish, of course] thus, the hallmark of yet another diplomatic genius.

Ron Paul's ideas sound pretty sensible at first but the mental visualization of a crazy old man, (Remember yet another "common sense" fellow by the name of H. Ross Perot who eventually crashed and burned, and who was actually outsmarted on a Larry King Show debate by our National Moron, Al Gore?), keeps popping into my head when I think of him. When Ron gets his mantra rolling on one of his favorite topics he falls into a yammer, goes a little bug-eyed, and then his voice begins to take on a certain noxious squeakiness... not good, I was was thinking, when one is attempting to look and sound authoritative to our adversaries in moments of national crisis, an event which will surely emerge at least once during the upcoming Presidential term. No, I can't do old Ron.

I have recently, (if frivolously), threatened to vote for Vermin Love Supreme, the Anarchist Party candidate, whose platform is summarized [by himself] as zombie apocalypse. Vermin wears a boot on his head and he has promised every American a pony. If the boot-cap thing was emblematic of something politically significant then I probably would have no great issues with this unique personal attire proclivity; however, he simply wears it because he likes it. And while I have always appreciated ponies, I really have no available space for one. So I've had to reconsider -- sorry, Vermin.

As for the Socialist candidates, my French isn't at all what it should be given my extensive study of that robust and lyrical language. And the Socialists are really into telling people what to do and when to do it which grates heavily upon my independent nature. So regardless of the ostensible attributes of the respective individuals who have chosen to run under that particular international Party affiliation, my over-riding thought is that they can pretty much go fuck themselves as far as I'm concerned.

Ultimately, I can see that I'll be forced to do what I did way back when my November choices were essentially reduced to a pair of pseudo-humans, both of whom clearly ended up on the ticket based either upon Satanic planetary activity or all-around bad luck for normal, reasonable voters, George W. Bush and Al Gore, and thus I'll again cast my ballot for Ralph Nader. Ralph Nader is as nutty as they come but, since he has not the slightest chance of winning, I'll feel entirely secure in punching out his chad or whatever process the local Board of Elections has hit upon this time around to allow the voters to commit political blasphemy. By the way, is Ralph Nader still alive? I don't guess that it matters -- his rotting corpse would be as effective in running our government, and perhaps better, than that of any of the other candidates.

A nicely-stylized picture of crazy old Ralph Nader -- I've always loved the guy.

In other words, whichever one of these rotten and corrupt bastards ends up being President, don't blame me!

We are going to war... again.

"I gonna kick you fat Jew ass you sonzabeeches!"

You will see (probably within the next two weeks) large numbers of our troops being re-deployed if you are disposed to closely monitor such strategic and tactical military activities. You will have to stay alert to the subtle signs of this activity because the Obama Administration is going to be loath to tip its trembling hand as to what is going on.

This development is actually transpiring right in front of our noses but the American media is so incredibly stupid and hilariously inept that they will be caught entirely off-guard by this one, (unless, of course, they are shrewd enough to read my informative blog!) Here's what is going to happen within the next two months (and could in fact, occur any day between now and then): Israel is going to unilaterally launch an airstrike on Iran and take out their nuclear facilities and other key miltary outposts, such as radar sites, hopefully all in a single mission. But this will be incredibly difficult because Iran has learned its lesson on what American weapons, (many of which are in the hands of the Jewish Israelis), can achieve. They're not outrageously stupid in Iran as they have been in most of the nations of the Middle-East. Even the U.S. bunker buster bombs would not be able to penetrate some of these deep Iranian underground facilities. So given that Israel's intelligence-gathering units are about ten times more effective than our own flaccid and politically-influenced CIA, they may already, (and likely do), have people in the key positions at these nuclear sites, fully-prepared to sabotage them internally at the key moment... zero hour.

Israel doesn't fuck around at war like we do -- when they go to war they kick ass and don't even bother with the names, and damn the whining newsmedia. They don't quiver at the thought of inevitable casualties like we do. They do not worry in the slightest about what the Arab nations and their rogue allies think, (we always weigh the faux-gravity of such nonsense), because they don't give a whacking shit what these assholes think. Except that they do know and comprehensively realize, much better than ninety-nine percent of Americans, (including our own witless CIA and buck-toothed, grinning State Department), that the Arabs despise the Persians [Iranians]. Iran is not an Arab nation -- it's a Persian nation. The people there are of an entirely different culture and, to a degree, of a different race altogether from their nearby Arab neighbors.

"But they are Muslims and that's what counts!" one might assert, thinking of Islam as one big happy family. Not! Yes, the Iranians are of the Islamic faith but, first and foremost, they are Shi'a Muslims, not Sunni Muslims. About ninety percent of all Muslims are Sunnis, (mostly moderate and traditional followers of The Messenger, Muhammed), and the minority, more Fundamentalist, factions are Shi'ites. Within the Shi'a, there are about ten sects, (for lack of a better characterization), most of which fuss endlessly amongst themselves, (and the reason for all this is a too long and lububrious a story to convey here but you can read about it if you are so inclined.) Speaking in terms of aggregate factions, a Sunni would not take the time to spit on a Shi'a Muslim, (although individual neighbors do get along just fine, the same as some Jews get along with Palestinians within the borders of Israel and elsewhere.)

The point is, for the purposes of what is about to occur, when Israel hits Iran the Arab leaders will raise holy hell in the United Nations Security Council, (where nothing productive or worthwhile ever happens), but they will in secret howl with laughter that the Iranians, whom are ninety percent Shi'a, are getting kicked in the balls. As for the American delegation, they will stride stiffly about, eyes darting from side to side, wringing their hands in terror and in anticipation of The Apocalypse found in The Revelation of Saint John the Divine, (the last book of The New Testament of The Holy Bible.) Sorry guys, the timing isn't at all proper and neither The False Prophet nor The Antichrist are in place -- and neither have the Levite Priests set the cornerstone of Solomon's Temple of God. Still, untutored, pompadour-haired, American hellfire-and-brimstone Pentecostal and Southern Baptist televangelists will react much more swiftly than our own government in seizing the moment to take full advantage of the quickly-unfolding chaotic events to prophecy The End, and thus urge the bug-eyed television faithful to send in huge donations ASAP which will generate a magnificent boost to their already monumental coffers of riches.

Benjamin Netanyahu, a renowned and respected leader with whom it would be unwise to fuck around with, came over here and hung out with Obama for a couple of days to share with him a little of his intention to decimate the escalating Iranian threat. Obama just about shit his pants and foolishly went on television to play down the prospect of imminent war to the gawking, slack-jawed American public. We received the news with the same nonplussed non-comprehension as we do the eternal and noxious Progressive Insurance television commercials which feature that incredibly ugly, pop-eyed, sucker-lipped woman, (but we do love the lizard ones and pay much closer attention to those.) Obama is endlessly appearing on television with some ostensible portent of doom so he's cried wolf so many times and has been seen so often at this point that people have become numb to anything which is actually significant or real.

Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, a politician and a leader, respectively.

Recently, the Iranians have gotten outrageously crazy, (I suppose as a result of internal groupspeak, perhaps reinforced with their foolish belief that The Prophet Muhammed is still in direct touch with Allah and will therefore swiftly deliver them to a glorious victory in their conquest of the Jewish Israelis): they have begun to cause big trouble around The Straits of Hormuz, the funnel-neck of oil transportation from the Middle-East to America and elsewhere. It appears that they are seriously considering taking on the U.S. Navy right there as incidents between the two nations continue to rise in magnitude and become more frequent. These episodes have actually manipulated us into an adversarial war posture with Iran. What the Iranians seem to have forgotten is that when Muhammed was alive and fighting, (as a general of sorts), he only emerged victorious in about half his battles against various enemies and armies, (I once wrote a lengthy academic paper on this very topic), and additionally that this purported Messenger of God was full of goat-shit clear up to his ears and was as big a con man as the illiterate Joseph Smith, Jr. was to The Mormons of 19th Century America.

The Straits of Hormuz, trigger spot for trouble in the Middle-East.

The only redeeming facet of the Iranian situation is that, aside from the crazy old Islamic Fundamentalist Mossbacks and the more secular fruitcake tyrants who share their power in running the country, the Iranian people are in fact intelligent, highly-cultured, and very much educated, unlike the people of most of their Middle-Eastern neighboring countries. So even though they are not in a position to halt the outbreak of a war, these more sensible folks will eventually garner more clout to direct what happens as this conflict expands and escalates. These are not the blind faithful Fundamentalist Allah-crazed lunatics of Lebanon or Syria -- they are a regular civilized citizenry who prefer to live much as we do here and they have reasonable expectations of a normal First-world society. They enjoy skiing, travel, their work at legitimate businesses and in good-paying occupations, dining in nice restaurants, and so on. Iran exports the finest caviar on the planet and if I eventually have to buy it on the black market, I suppose I will do so, stimulated by much the same love as I have for the exquisite cigars of Havana, Cuba.

It's just unfortunate that the Iranian people have somehow allowed their country to fall into the hands of religion-crazed lunatics and secular morons. (Hmmmmm.... are we heading down a similar path?) When their trouble-making President recently declared in a much-renowned U.N. speech that there were no homosexuals in Iran, it was clear to me that the man had actually bought into his own ridiculous mantra. Had he said, "I'll torture and massacre any homosexual that I discover in Iran!" then that would have been a much more credible comment and, while we would have branded him an insensitive butcher, we would still be somewhat assured that he was capable of logical thought, albeit based upon his own flawed personal beliefs. But the larger truth is that Mamoud Ahmadinejad lives in a dark fantasy world, not the planet which the rest of us peacefully inhabit.

Mamoud Ahmadinejad, the nutty President of Iran.

So Americans, (in which I include the United States government), should not anticipate the prospective actions of the Iranian Government from the point of view of normal, reasonable people. The leadership in Iran stands as a pack of power-crazed religious buffoons and they are subject to behavior which would cause even goofy old pill-crazed Rush Limbaugh to gasp in astonishment. I anticipate that Iran will attack either an American oil tanker or perhaps even a U.S. Navy warship, (or that of one of our allies), within the coming weeks.

It's as clear as top-shelf vodka to me that Israel has every intention of attacking Iran in the very near future. Netanyahu just wanted to touch base with Obama, neither to secure his opinion nor to recruit his support in such a radical venture, but just simply to say to him, "We're gonna do it and you might want to get your ducks in a row so that you don't look like a complete uninformed fool -- you'll have to choose a side, you know, once the shooting starts." He's well-aware of which side America will be forced to take. And when the shooting does start, Iran will stand alone. Both Russia and China will rattle every sabre that they possess but they will not go beyond providing arms and international lip service as a token public gesture in their support of the Iranians. Russia simply doesn't have the money or the political will at the moment to get involved and China's economy just recently dropped a few critical points and the last thing they want now is a halt in trade with the United States. In fact, China will be really aggravated with Iran if they generate a ruckus in the Straits of Hormuz because they are directly dependent to a huge degree upon Iranian oil. And by stopping the sale of its own oil, Iran will effectively commit economic suicide. Oil is their foremost financial lifeline but, again, insane people do not often consider the logical before they act. Initially at least, they will welcome an Israeli airstrike as they have been spoiling for such a fight for years, one which they will fully anticipate winning.

In any case, it's going to happen and if you think I'm crazy just watch for key events which will peripherally reveal the direction of things. The BBC would be a good source for such intricate information as well as National Public Radio [NPR] and/or RT. The latter organization is much-jeered in the West because they employ loads of hype and propaganda but not everything they report is an outright lie. Their basic information is often absolutely correct -- it's their interpretation which typically lacks legitimacy and veracity.

And besides, at the end of May, 2012 we can determine easily enough, (that is, if the Middle East remains at relative peace), if I was full of shit or not. You can dub me a dumbass Hillbilly peckerwood if you wish, (you would certainly not be the first to do so), and it could well be that none of this will gain a foothold. But the entire scenario seems ripe to me and I would assert that Barack Obama made an egregious mistake, (if he wants to keep all this under wraps), by blabbing out a bunch of obviously-contrived bullshit spin for the print and broadcast media whodats. If Israel initiates either an airstrike or even an invasion, The United States military will be in on it within a day or so afterward.

UPDATE, 31 March 2012: Bitch-dog Hillary is making threats -- the Iranians don't give a damn what she says. Just like me, they despise her.

http://news.yahoo.com/clinton-time-running-diplomacy-iran-134022862.html